I’m surprised amen dunes and US girls aren’t higher. Also FJM keeping a low profile in regards to doing interviews probably worked against him. I’m actually also surprised to see pusha so high up there... not that his album isn’t great, but I think his absolute savaging of drake won him favor since many critics seem to have drake fatigue.

Just want to give a shoutout to the AOTY staff. The list aggregation is phenomenal this year. I've been following since 16 and this site gets better and better every year. Thank you for all the hard work!!

Looks to me like a good number of these publications were put off Kanye once they realised his slavery comments and support for Trump etc were genuine and not another meaningless controversy he created to put himself in the spotlight. Seen a few publications tweet positively about him and get completely ratio'd so its not a surprise. There's albums high on this list that got nowhere near the critical acclaim that KSG got when it was released. KSG has one of the highest critic scores of the year and its creators are relevant hip hop giants so I really cant see another reason for the absence.

The only album from that string of releases which arguably isn't getting the placement on lists that it should (based off of reviews upon release) is Kids See Ghosts. Ye had tepid reception at best, and the Pusha T album is still on a ton of lists. Not sure what the issue is with Kids See Ghosts.

Very much doubt Kanye's Trump support had much of an impact on his placement (or lack thereof) on lists. It's seriously just another way to imagine right-wing persecution. For one, he tweeted his support for Trump months before any of the summer albums dropped, meaning his Trump support should've already been factored into the album review scores IF it was going to have any effect (I personally doubt it did). The only argument I can see in favor of it effecting lists is that the Trump-Kanye meeting was so repulsive that publications didn't want to place his albums on lists, though I think the consensus was that the meeting demonstrated Kanye clearly isn't totally there (and he eventually walked back some of his support for republicans).

It's honestly just a blessing that so many lists included IDLES. I would have never expected them to have the year that they did in terms of critic fanfare. A lot of the top albums here otherwise I'm really not too surprised by.

The individual year end lists often don't tie in with their own critics'scores. Looks like they reserve the right to re-evaluate later on in the year. Take US Girls and the Skinny: scored 100/100 but changed their mind and put it 45th. Dicks.

This is the first year in a while where I have absolutley no idea what's gonna win or even top 5. No Kendrick album, nothing from the classic indie rock bands, lotta split opinion about the prog and hard rock albums, no consensus best rap album, kanye mighta shot himself in the foot with his trump stuff... I guess Beach House is maybe a good guess? Mitski, Car Seat, Janelle, Noname, Travis Scott, Robyn, Rosalia, Christine, Sophie would be my guess at top 10.